


The One Where Matt Plays Yenta

by RiverK



Series: Exileverse [2]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Avocados at Law, BROT3, F/F, Femslash, Foggy Nelson Is a Good Bro, Gen, Human Disaster Matt Murdock, Human Disaster OFC, M/M, Matchmaking, Matt Murdock Needs a Hug, Matt POV, Matt is a meddling control freak, Mattchmaker, Plotless Fluff, Queer Character of Color, Reader Insert, Romance, Slow Burn, Unrequited Love, actual alley cat Matt Murdock, eventually Matt/Foggy, everyone is bi, heheh see what i did there, immigrant, now the character has gone off and become her own monster, or at least it used to be a reader insert, this universe got away from me, way too much back-story
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-19
Updated: 2019-02-06
Packaged: 2019-08-25 18:32:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 5,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16666039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RiverK/pseuds/RiverK
Summary: Matt generally isn't one to get involved in other people's business; he's got enough going on in his life, what with his nocturnal ... hobbies. But there's something painfully pure about the way Karen and Twofer dance around each other.sequel toExile





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a sequel to [Exile](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4093561), a second person POV mess of fluff and angst written before Netflix Iron Fist S1 happened. The AU is a combo of post-S1 Netflix Daredevil, and the Iron Fist comicsverse.
> 
> If you don't feel like reading the previous fic, skip to the end notes for the background.

Matt knows Twofer likes Karen. When you can literally hear someone's heart skip a beat and smell the attraction pheromones in their sweat, it's pretty hard not to know these kinds of things.

And even if he didn't have the ability to pick up on all that, the woman has all the subtlety and grace of a drunken puppy. Twofer's voice goes up an octave when she speaks to Karen. And there's a palpable brightness to her tone when Karen responds. Sometimes, she stutters when Karen addresses her directly, and a nervous giggle often slips out not long after.

And Karen? A smile always curls around her voice when she says Twofer's name.

It's adorable.

In the Thursday afternoon lull right before they start to close up shop, he registers a dramatic uptick in Twofer's pulse. His first thought is that of danger: what threat did Twofer detect? But he senses nothing out of the ordinary --a group of teenagers arguing loudly among themselves on the street, two dogs barking at each other across two buildings, a travelogue of foods going bad in a nearby dumpster, and an ambulance.

He forces himself to relax. The late autumn chill is perfect with his afternoon mug of mint tea, and he's at that nice warm spot by the window across from Karen's desk. Nothing's wrong. For all anyone else in the office knows, he's completely absorbed in the Braille printouts he's got on his lap.

Twofer breathes slowly, in through the nose, out through the mouth: calming herself. A line of tension tightens her spine and shoulders. She's blushing furiously, judging from the heat radiating from her ears and cheeks. He can hear her fingernails scrape against the calluses on her palms as she clenches and loosens her fist.

Matt tries not to lean forward. He keeps his fingers on his printout.

Is she finally going to ask Karen out?

Across from her, oblivious, Karen clicks through something on her computer and writes something down.

Twofer stands beside Karen's desk and clears her throat. The scrape of Karen's pen stops, and her hair brushes over the fabric of her blouse as she looks up.

"I-" Twofer begins. Her pulse thunders in Matt's ears. She clears her throat again. "I uh-"

Karen makes an encouraging sound as the tension rises. Matt holds his breath.

Then the tension crests, and Matt hears a whoosh of exhalation. Twofer deflates. 

"I just wanted to know if you had a .pdf of the Kirkpatrick file?" she says in a pinched rush. "I've got the printout, but I want to add it to my text-to-speech app so I can listen to it on the way home."

Matt conceals his sigh behind a loud slurp from his mug of tea. This is the third time Twofer's crapped out on talking to Karen about her feelings this week. It's getting a little ridiculous.

Matt generally isn't one to get involved in other people's business; he's got enough going on in his life, what with his nocturnal ... hobbies. But there's something painfully pure about the way Karen and Twofer dance around each other: Twofer nervously, Karen obliviously. And it's something new and bright and wonderful, and he wants to watch it blossom and keep it safe.

Foggy's definitely going to want to get in on this.

He doesn't quite know when they had become "theirs" in particular; they're both powerfully badass in their own rights. But he and Foggy had been through a lot together, and they'd built this practice --this family- together. And the blanket protectiveness he feels for Hell's Kitchen is concentrated and warm in the offices of Nelson and Murdock. Foggy and Karen and Twofer are his friends. His people. His.

He isn't letting them go.


	2. Chapter 2

He asks Foggy to walk with him back to his place after work. When he's sure they're safely out of earshot of the building (to him, which was about four and a half blocks away), he brings it up.

"Twofer likes Karen," he says bluntly. Then again, everyone likes Karen. Foggy liked Karen, back in the early days of Nelson and Murdock. He still kind of does --Matt can tell from the way Foggy occasionally lingers too long by Karen's desk, ostensibly shooting the breeze. It makes something inside of him... clench. He doesn’t want to think about why.

And if Matt is honest with himself, he has to admit that he's attracted to Karen too. The smell of her skin, the curve of her voice, the razor sharpness of her tenacity and wit. What's not to like? But he's her friend and her employer, and while both he and Foggy are drawn to her, neither of them are nearly as bowled over by the gale force winds of Karen Page as Twofer.

"Karen likes her back," Foggy replies.

Matt hums in agreement, mildly put off by Foggy's complete lack of surprise. "How'd you find out?"

"She told me. Eel Night, when you were out Parkouring people in the face and Twofer had her cousin's birthday dinner."

"She knows Twofer likes her back?"

"If she does, she's deep in denial about it. But I've seen how Twofer looks at Karen. No offense, but someone has to be way blinder than you not to see how smitten the woman is."

Matt laughs. "You're kidding, she's even more obvious than I thought?"

Foggy snorts, and the skin of his neck rustles softly against the cotton polyblend of his shirt as he shakes his head. "I'm pretty sure the only reason Karen hasn't gotten a clue is because she's head over heels for her too. Her planner has little love-hearts with the number 2 all along the margins. And when she got wasted, she asked me about the chances of Proposition Eight getting repealed, and if I thought Twofer would be open to trying for a Greencard Marriage if her student visa doesn't get approved. It was adorable."

Matt imagines a drunk Karen, warm with alcohol flush and fluttering with infatuation, and he can't help but agree. Soppy, infatuated Karen is utterly precious.

"Twofer tried to make a move today."

"No way! You've been holding out on me Buddy, did it work? Are they going out? When?"

Foggy’s presence envelops him in reassuring warmth, constant and bright. Matt stops himself from leaning into it, and instead shakes his head. "She chickened out."

"Agh, not again! That woman has no game!"

"You've seen her try too, huh?"

"Oh Jesus, for weeks. It's like some frustrating romantic Cha-cha, one step forward, two steps back, shake your booty, do it again." They pause on the street, and Foggy secures Matt's hand on his elbow so he can demonstrate.

The movement dislodges the scent of Foggy’s shampoo and the faint tang of end-of-day sweat.

Matt laughs and shakes his head. "But they'd be great together."

"I know right? Can you imagine it? They'd be the most beautiful mess."

"And so happy."

"So happy," Foggy echoes. There is longing in his voice. "And they deserve to be happy. They’ve been through a lot."

A pang of guilt stabs through Matt. He's put Foggy through a lot too. That last year, after Nobu, that had been a bad time. And Foggy doesn't complain that often, but Matt can tell that his nighttime activities worry Foggy sick. Self loathing curls tightly around the bottom of his stomach, and he wishes, briefly and vehemently, that he didn't exist.

But he forcefully shoves the thought aside and mentally growls at himself to focus on the task at hand.

"We should set them up."

The rhythm of Foggy's step shifts as he turns to peer at Matt. "You think?"

Matt nods. "Like you said, they deserve to be happy, and they'd be great together."

"What if they don't work out?"

Matt shakes his head. The thought has already occurred to him several times. He's run several scenarios in his head. He knows things don't always work out. He's out almost every night slamming his fists into things that don't work out: relationships, jobs, twelve-step programs --things that lead people to make terrible decisions when they fall apart.

The world is vicious and harsh and full of noise and jagged edges, and sometimes all one can hang on to in the screaming, raging dark are faith and hope.

And he has faith in his friends, he tells himself. He believes in their capacity for grace. Their ability to flow into one another's rhythms and move through their shared spaces with peace. He hopes.

"It'll work out," he insists. "And if it doesn't then at least we'd have finally cut through all the romantic tension."

"You mean the sex hormones, don't you? I bet that sniffer of yours can smell them lusting after each other."

"Foggy!"

"What? It's a logical assumption to make, right?"

Matt feels the blood creep upwards to heat up his cheeks. He ducks his head in embarrassment. "Kinda, yeah," he mumbles. "It's really awkward."

"Two ladies together is hot and all, but it's kinda weird when it's Karen and Twofer." Foggy shakes his head. "I don't envy you, bud."

Matt laughs, but doesn't rise to Foggy's bait. "The important thing is that you're in. Right?"

Foggy snorts, "Does a bear shit in the woods? Does a homeless guy piss on the Subway? Of course I'm in. These are our girls."

Contentment, odd and shy, curls underneath Matt's skin at Foggy's words. Their girls. Yes. Theirs. Together. 

They have to play this right.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This might make a teeeensy bit more sense if you've read Exile

It's Wednesday of the next week, and he and Foggy haven't exactly thought up of any plans to get them together. Neither of them are much good at this. They should probably try harder. But then again, maybe Karen and Twofer will figure things out by themselves, and they wouldn't have to do anything at all.

Then Twofer rushes into Matt's office two minutes after Karen comes in smelling of autumn leaves and Starbucks. Twofer presses her back against Matt's closed door. Her pulse is galloping, and anxiety and attraction and... sadness? intermingle in the mild scent of her sweat.

"I ah," Twofer clears her throat, "I'm having one of those days. The light out there is too bright. I don't want to risk getting another uh attack."

Matt keeps his windows closed and the shades drawn to drown out the sounds outside, but since he doesn't really bother with the lights, he supposes his office is comparatively dim. From what she's told them of her old injury, sometimes it flares up and makes her sensitive to light. If Twofer weren't lying through her teeth, he'd understand why she would prefer his office's comforting darkness to the sunlight and buzzing flourescents outside. 

"You know I don't mind you being here, Touf," he says blandly, amused. "Explanations aren't necessary." He gestures for her to get comfortable on one of the chairs on the other side of his desk and goes back to his screen reader.

"Thanks," she mumbles, sheepish, still vibrating with nerves. 

She settles in, removing her left shoe and tucking her foot into the corner of the chair. Her hair rustles as she puts in her earphones, and Matt preemptively blocks out the tinny, mechanical voice of her smartphone's text-to-speech app. Still, he can't help but overhear that she's listening to city food and health ordinances, probably for the health code violation case for Mrs. Makutsi's Tswana diner. She'll probably give him a list of the relevant sections and a couple of case digests by lunchtime. She works fast. In contrast, he's only halfway through the material she'd turned over to him yesterday. It's almost embarrassing how much he and Foggy have to pick up their own paces just to keep up with her.

But then again, maybe today they won't have to.

The salt smell of tears accompanies a tiny, subvocalized sob from Twofer. The heel of her palm scrapes against her cheek, and she toes off her other shoe to pull her legs up to her chest, fetal and defensive.

Matt wonders if he should ask whether she's OK. She hasn't made enough of a sound for her to think he'd notice her crying, it would seem suspiciously perceptive of him to say anything right now. And she probably wouldn't appreciate the fact that he detected how vulnerable she is. Whatever the reason for it might be.

But then she sniffles quietly and hiccups under her breath, and Matt can't take it.

He pulls the box of Kleenex from the bottom drawer and pushes it towards her. Then he reaches across his desk for her shoulder

"I'm here if you want to talk about it, OK?" He says in a low tone.

Twofer nods and makes a sound halfway between a sob and a squeak, and begins crying in earnest.

"I'm sorry, Boss." She snatches several pulls of tissue paper to blot out her tears and blow her nose. "This is so unprofessional, I'm always so much trouble, I'm sorr-"

Matt maneuvers around his desk to sit across from her, and finds her hand. "Hey, hey, none of that. It's um. It's OK, really." He isn't sure what to do. He can deal with traumatized people in fraught situations, he can tell them what to do and how to stay calm, but he isn't sure how to actually comfort someone.

"I'm just Matt, remember? I'm your boss, but I'm your friend, too," he hazards. "It's OK. You can tell me what this is about if you want to, but take your time, it's really OK."

“I just-” she takes several pulls of the Kleenex and blows her nose. “I’m, I’m not sure. I just miss home. I was thinking about how nicely Karen’s blouse brings out her eyes, and then I remembered the color of the front door of my grandmother’s house, and how I can never go back, and now I’m -I’m like this!” The words tumble out of her as if they were being pushed out, crowded by emotion and her thickening accent.

Matt stretches forward to pat her shoulder, “Uh, there there,” he says awkwardly. He hates that he sounds like such a terrible cliche, and he almost draws back when a fresh sob claws its way out of Twofer’s throat.

“I can never go home,” she whispers. And it carries with it the weight of all the troubles she had shared with them --her failure to be the hero her family wanted her to be, her failure to become a successful lawyer, her involvement with the Cult of the Steel Snake, and all the fallout her subsequent fight for justice had created.

New York is his home. It’s where he was born, it’s where he grew up, and it’s where he knows he will inevitably die. He protects it, and it shelters him. Its grid-patterned streets are carved into his very DNA. He can’t imagine himself living anywhere else. He can’t imagine the enormity of her loss. He stops petting her and draws closer to pull her towards him. His jacket needs dry-cleaning anyway, tears and snot be damned.

He vaguely remembers his father doing the same thing after the accident, pulling him near and touching his hair and humming low and rough when the nightmares and the noise became too much. And a fierce protectiveness bares its fangs inside him, curling its tail around this woman who has become his friend.

He has only ever felt this way towards Foggy and Karen, and now he knows that Twofer --for all that he and the rest of Nelson and Murdock have only known her for barely five months- has become part of what he has secretly come to call his family. 

They don’t talk. He doesn’t think he can say anything to make her feel better. He strokes her hair as she clutches at his lapels, sobbing; they stay that way for what feels like hours before Twofer finally pulls away. She inhales, loud and moist, and clears her throat. Her hand finds his, and she squeezes his fingers. “I’m OK,” she mutters. Her voice is directed at her lap. She’s too ashamed to even look at him, it seems. “Thank you. Matt. Really.” She clears her throat again. “I’m sorry.”

Matt sighs. He really should be used to her endless apologies by now. Everything she does is an apology, “I’m sorry for taking up space,” her body language tells him. “It’s terribly inconsiderate of me to exist,” says the undercurrent in her words. Always, over and over, “I’m sorry.”

Nighttime activities aside, he knows it isn’t his job to fix everything. He knows he can’t atone for everybody’s sins; he’s Catholic, not Jesus. But right now, he wishes with a fervent heat that he could find some way to dissipate the all-pervading guilt and shame and let her live.

But it isn’t his place. If all the time and blood spent and spilled on his nightly hobby has taught him anything, it’s that some things are simply beyond one’s control. Sometimes, that abusive boyfriend shoots his girl before Matt can divest him of his gun, sometimes that traumatized eight-year-old has to go into the foster system because Matt can’t stop her parents from OD’ing on the shit twenty-five Daredevils working in concert can’t keep from returning again and again to the street. He can’t cure addiction or misogyny or racism. He can’t fix a broken system that keeps people poor and desperate and miserable. All he can do is race to patch up the cracks.

And he’s tired, suddenly. But that isn’t Twofer’s fault.

He’s made his choices, and he does what he needs to stay true to himself. He can’t bear to live any other way.

“No ‘sorry,’” he says fruitlessly. “Things will be OK.”

After everything he’s seen and everything he continues to be powerless to change, he doesn’t have much faith in what he’s just said. But she has to believe it for him, even if right now, he can’t quite bring himself to agree. “I’m here if you want to talk more, OK? I’m your friend.”

She sniffles and nods and pulls herself straight. “I uh, I’m going to go out on a bagel run.” There’s a shaky smile in her voice. She’s already tucking the weight of her loss away. “Want an Everything bagel, or just the plain stuff?”

He lets himself laugh.

This is what Normal is, just hasty slaps of plaster, spit, and magical thinking spread over profound structural flaws. “Plain please. Organic, if you’re going to the Kosher place up the street.”


	4. Chapter 4

Matt goes out that night. He makes his rounds and finds himself near Karen’s building. He hears her playing Janelle Monae, tinny on her Android phone’s subpar speakers. She’s singing under her breath as she washes her dishes.

He lets himself smile.

It doesn’t match the Devil’s horns or the demon raging in the pit of his belly, but for a moment, he basks in quiet warmth.

He tells himself he’s doing it for her. He has to check in on her. Karen has had too many attempts on her life over the past couple of years. He remembers the night after they first met, when she had snuck out of his flat and into her apartment where Fisk’s hatchet-man had been waiting. He doesn’t want that to happen ever again. He senses a similar devil to his own inside of Karen, full of familiar rage and hunger. And he knows how she harnesses it to do right by their clients, by her vision of the truth. He can’t stop her from taking risks because of it, but he can at least look in on her now and again. To make sure she’s safe.

To reassure himself that she’s real.

The way he eventually realized Foggy was real after two months of his near-constant babble and his foghorn snoring in the bed across from Matt’s in Columbia’s dorm.

Because after the accident --and maybe even before; he doesn’t remember it that well anymore- friends for Matt had been few and far between. And here he is with not just Foggy, but Karen as well. And now Twofer. And he knows he has something he’s too broken to touch, but selfishly, he tucks them against his chest and holds them tight.


	5. Chapter 5

The next day, he passes by the office reception area on the way to the water dispenser when Karen’s hand lingers a little too long on Twofer’s shoulder. Matt almost misses it, but for a sharp intake of breath that initially puts him on the alert for signs of danger. His senses narrow in on Karen and the flutter of her heart. Heat gathers on her cheeks and fingertips, and the fabric of Twofer’s cardigan scratches as she regroups and passes the movement off as an affectionate squeeze. Hair brushes against cotton as Twofer looks up briefly to smile at her, and for a moment, Matt doesn’t breathe.

And the moment passes.

He doesn’t sigh. He hasn’t been snooping. And he definitely won’t meddle. Nope, he’s not a meddler. But he and Foggy need to figure out a way to move things along before the romantic tension kills him. That doesn’t count as meddling, right? Just... creative scene-setting. After all, he knows how passion can fade when it burns too hot, and while Karen’s and Twofer’s doesn’t exactly scorch, they do raise the figurative temperature of any room they exist in together. Given their mutual inaction, the window of time before their raging crushes simmer into quiet, platonic affection could come sooner rather than later.

And he doesn’t want them to miss the chance at some form of conjugal happiness. A soft, warm space in a cold, jagged world.

He wonders if they’ll have a Catholic ceremony. Will it be here in New York?

He shakes his head.

Foggy. Foggy will know what to do.


	6. Chapter 6

“OK, seriously Matt, you’re going to have to step back a bit, I feel like you’re getting a little over-invested.”

They’re standing outside the corner deli, backed against the side wall away from the foot traffic. “I’m not over-invested,” Matt protests around his turkey sub. “I just think they deserve to be happy together.”

Matt’s fairly certain Foggy is giving him an “I’m sure you do” look. It reeks of garlicky tomato sauce, basil, and skepticism.

“Seriously dude, this isn’t our business. This is their lives, not some fanfic or something.”

“You read fanfic?”

Foggy shrugs, “Sometimes? I mean, it’s basically free entertainment, and some of it’s really good. Also don’t change the subject, Murdock, your deflection tactics don’t work on me. I know who you are.”

OK, so maybe he is a little over-invested.

Still, Foggy’s words, I know who you are, they slip past several layers Matt’s emotional armor to rest squarely between his ribs. Foggy does. He’s one of the few who truly does now. Matt should have protected him from it, but it’s too late. And despite that, Foggy’s still here. The fact throbs inside of him, sore and soothing all at once.

Matt sighs. “I just... what if they miss their chance, you know? They’ve both been through so much. There’s so much that could still go wrong. They deserve a shot at happiness.”

Foggy is quiet for several seconds, and the noises of the street --two rats mating in the dumpster in the alley across from them, the man muttering in Cantonese into his phone, the grind of a taxi’s gearshift- filter into the space he and Matt share.

“Is this still about Karen and Twofer?”

Matt tenses. Foggy is warm and bright beside him, his pulse a familiar rhythm underneath Matt’s skin.

He doesn’t know.

“Yeah, of course,” he says, less to Foggy and more to himself. “They’re our girls. And besides, didn’t you say you were on board with setting them up?”

Air rushes out of Foggy’s lungs, and the muscles along his back curl downward. “I am, and I already have a plan, but you’re being kinda intense. I know your nighttime hobby can be stressful, but maybe tone down the enthusiasm a little bit? Karen and Twofer are their own people, you’re hanging a lot of weight on them becoming an item. Way I see it, if it won’t work out, it won’t work out, and that’s fine. We’re all adults.”

“You have a plan?”

“Did you even hear any of the other stuff I’d said?”

“What kind of plan is it?”

Foggy’s growl is more affection than irritation. “Goddammit, Murdock.”


	7. Chapter 7

Foggy’s plan, as it turns out, involves leaving Karen and Twofer with a desk-load of paperwork, a bottle of vodka, and a deadline, and announcing that he and Matt are leaving the office in their capable hands to see if they could scrounge up clients at the precinct.

“They’ll have to do overtime,” Foggy explains, his arm warm underneath Matt’s wind-chilled hand. “It’ll get late and the sun will set, and they’ll have to turn on the light. But the main light in the reception area’s blown out -thanks for sniffing it out before I caused an electrical fire, by the way- so they’ll have to huddle under Karen’s desk lamp, all intimate-like.”

“Ah,” Despite himself, Matt feels a grin stretch across his face. “And the vodka’s there if the radiator starts doing that thing where it stops making rooms warm.”

He can feel Foggy waggling his eyebrows. “Exactly,” he says. “And if they stay at the office late enough, Twofer will insist on walking Karen home, and when they get there, Karen will insist that Twofer crash at her place because it’s dark and it’s late.”

“We’re making a lot of assumptions about how they’ll act though,” Matt says.

Foggy’s arm moves as he taps the side of his nose, dragging Matt’s hand along. “That’s part of the thrill.”

“Aha,” Matt laughs, and it feels loose and weightless in his chest. Foggy’s arm is warm and underneath his fingers, his bulk a solid point of familiarity in a rushing world. This is how they are supposed to be.


	8. Chapter 8

Twofer is the first one in the office the next morning. Matt knows because he recognizes the mildly astringent smell of her germicidal soap before he reaches their floor. He can hear the creak of a stepladder and the grind of metal against metal through the office door.

She’s replacing the blown out light bulb. He’s not sure what that’s supposed to mean.

He jiggles the doorknob a little before opening the door to the office, so he doesn’t surprise her. He hears the sharp in-breath of her surprise all the same.

“Morning!” Her tone is chipper, but her heartbeat is rapid. Even on the highest rung of the ladder, she has to stand on tip-toe to reach the ceiling, and every line in her body vibrates with the tension of a plucked violin string. “I’m just replacing the light, in case you’re wondering why my voice is so high up.”

“Ah,” he says, hanging his cane on the row of hooks by the door. “I figured. Uh, do you want me to hold you steady? The ladder’s pretty old.”

“I just finished, no worries.” 

She stops and releases a long, shaky breath before climbing down.

“You mind hitting the light switch? I want to see if it works.”

Matt smirks, but he does as she asks. He’s still by the door anyway.

He hears the flickering clicks of the igniting bulb and senses the electricity buzzing behind the drywall tease at the edges of his fingertips. She hisses at what he presumes is the sudden change in lighting, and her shirt rustles as she covers her eyes. The smell of tears fills the room.

“Yup, it works. Ow, that’s bright. Shouldn’t have looked straight at it, stupid girl,” she mutters to herself swiping at her eyes. The self-directed venom in her tone throws him for a moment. He has to tamp down on the protectiveness that surges up inside of him; he can’t protect her from herself.

“Had another episode last night?” he asks. He knows he’s fishing for information, but he can’t help it. He has to know. He can tell Foggy about it later. And be super casual about it, of course. Yeah. Super cajj.

Twofer grunts an affirmative. “We wound up leaving here a little late, so Karen insisted I sleep over at her place. I think I might be allergic to something there. Or maybe it’s stress, I can’t- I’m not sure.”

“You OK?” He finds her arm and nudges her towards the couch. He doesn’t like the way that the stuffing smells like stale coffee and the faintest hint of dead cockroach, but they had gotten it off the curb for free. They’ve been in business for the better part of two years, but with four employees, rent, and the general poverty levels of their chosen clientele, new furniture is still a bit outside of their financial range. Still, the couch is well-loved enough to be comfortable without being a complete wreck, and it dips a little in the center, which makes intimacy a default. It is convenient for getting clients to lower their guard, and useful for when members of their little team needed a bit of encouragement to open up.

Like right now.

Twofer lets herself slide into the dip in the center of the couch until she’s leaned up against Matt’s shoulder. She releases a barely audible sigh. “I like Karen.”

Her voice is faint and small, choked with hesitation. Matt doesn’t move.

“She’s so pretty and smart and wonderful and I want to kiss her so much, sometimes it’s hard to be around her. But being away from her is worse. Sometimes she’s all I can think about. And I’m scared.”

Matt allows himself to loosen beside her and take more of her weight. He hums low in his throat to encourage her to continue.

“I miss home.”

“Huh?”

“I’m not out to my family yet, and I feel like- I feel like if I do something to be with Karen, I’ll- They’ll- You know that crappy ‘Adam and Steve, Madam and Eve’ argument against homosexuality? If I tell them- I’m so far away, and I miss them so much, and if this- If they-” She squeaks, and the tear-smell fills the room again. This time, Matt know it isn’t because of her eye problem.

She sniffles and hastily swipes a sleeve against her cheek.

Anger and frustration are easy emotions for Matt to identify, and he recognizes the way they tighten like steel bands around his chest. This is the way of the world: homophobia and bigotry still exist, and hate and fear still rake their claws into the soles of people’s feet, immobilizing them, emptying them of the capacity for joy. The devil inside of him bares its teeth and pulls Twofer close. 

But this sadness? The longing tugging at the base of his throat? He isn’t sure what to make of it.

So he strokes the loose hair clinging to her sleeve and back. “They won’t,” he whispers. He doesn’t know, of course, but how could they? Do they know how fragile life is? How easily things could fall apart? Hatred, bigotry, could reduce it to nothing more than memories and shreds. “They won’t,” he says again, more to himself than to her.

Foggy’s confusing tangle of relatives and siblings and the crowded cacophony of familiarity and safety and home has been something Matt has secretly longed for ever since Foggy had invited him to Thanksgiving dinner, Freshman year. From what she’s told them, Twofer has something like it. And the thought of her losing that, after everything that she had already lost, everything she had given up, it feels like a famine underneath his ribs: hollowing him out.

No, that can’t happen. Protectiveness and pride rally in his chest. “And even if they will, you won’t be alone. We’re here.” She sniffles loudly and makes a choked, interrogative sound high in her throat. “Foggy, Karen, and I. We won’t leave you. Whatever happens, if it turns out they’re a bunch of bigoted, homophobic assholes, you’re not alone.”

She squeaks again, and under Matt’s arm, she quivers. “But I love them. My grandmother, my parents, my cousins, my aunts and uncles. They’re mine and I love them, and I miss them so... so much.” Her last word is swallowed in a sob, but she breathes deep. “If I do something, if I tell Karen how I feel, I feel like I’m... I’m renouncing them. And I can’t do that, I can’t let go. And if Karen rejects me-”

“She won’t reject you-”

“I’ll be alo- wait what do you mean she won’t reject me?” She pulls out of his hold to look at him, and he can feel the intensity of her gaze through his glasses. The sudden levity and elation in her voice lighten the air.

He fumbles, wondering if he has any right to say anything. “I ah I have it on good authority that she’s isn’t likely to turn you down. I think.” He says lamely.

“And even if she doesn’t reciprocate, you won’t lose her. She won’t --we won’t leave you on the lurch just because you’re gay-”

“Queer,” she mutters.

“-Queer,” he corrects himself. “And I mean, it’s 2017. Your family’s probably going to be fine with it.”

“And if they aren’t?”

The office reception area feels cramped and heavy with resolve, and Matt takes her hand and squeezes hard.

“Then we’re here.”

**Author's Note:**

> In this universe, the Iron Fist comicsverse’s Seven Capital Cities of Heaven and the their Immortal Weapons all exist as occasionally-recognized semi-geopolitical entities, with their respective Weapons as prominent political and military figures. My OFC, Twofer, is a citizen of a fictional Asian country that sits between K’un Lun and K’un Zi, where the Steel Snake Immortal Weapon comes from. That country is beholden to K’un Zi in a way the story has yet to define, and it has strong cultural ties to K’un Lun and its Iron Fist mythos.
> 
> Twofer herself is from a refugee family that had fled a Southeast Asian dictatorship during the ‘70s (I’ll leave which SEA country to your imagination, dear reader). Following her grandfather’s death, her grandmother, the family matriarch, became convinced that the only way to free their home country from the dictatorship (which had lost its steam in the ‘80s, but old folks sometimes have trouble changing tack, especially after a lifetime of trauma) was to have one of her descendants gain the power of an Immortal Weapon and free their home country. So for two generations, Twofer’s family has grown up with extensive training in the family martial arts style in the hopes of someday producing a practitioner strong enough to either battle Shou Lao the Undying and become the Iron Fist, or become the Steel Snake. Given her lifelong training. Twofer is a competent fighter in her own right, but not nearly talented, skilled, or lucky enough to become an Immortal Weapon. So, like her cousins and siblings, she tried to make up for her failure by achieving in some other way. Hers was to become a successful lawyer. Unfortunately, she became embroiled in Madam Gao’s heroin-slinging Cult of the Steel Snake, got caught up in diplomatic affairs between her country and K’un Zi, and eventually washed out of law school and fled to America to escape inter-government prosecution and start over.
> 
> Now, she is a legal researcher and conflict analyst for Nelson and Murdock, but because of America’s tightening immigration laws, she technically counts as an illegal immigrant. Exile is plotless fluff that covers how she became part of Nelson and Murdock and how my lovely Avocado BroT3 came to accept her into their little family. This is... more plotless fluff that picks up where it had left off.


End file.
